A sequential gated research framework for addressing potential impacts of marine carbon dioxide removal on fisheries, aquaculture, and Indigenous communities
This article presents a multi-stage research framework for assessing the environmental and social impacts of marine carbon dioxide removal. Using a stage-gated approach, it outlines key considerations for fisheries, aquaculture, marine ecosystems, and Indigenous communities across project planning, testing, deployment, and long-term monitoring.
Subject Tags
- Fisheries
- Carbon storage
- Conservation Planning
Abstract
Marine ecosystems are at risk due to the increasing pressures of climate change and other human activities. Fisheries and aquaculture, which employ 61.8 million people worldwide and supply ∼20% of human animal protein demand, are sectors that critically rely on healthy marine ecosystems. Marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) encompasses a portfolio of novel approaches that aim to mimic natural processes to increase the ocean’s uptake and storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide through intentional human interventions in the marine environment. Alongside verifying the efficacy of mCDR techniques, their environmental and social impact must also be assessed to enable informed decisions about what, if any, research, development, and deployment of mCDR should move forward, accounting for the full spectrum of benefits, costs, and trade-offs and in comparison with other CDR interventions. Evaluating the footprint of mCDR requires identifying and understanding positive and negative impacts beyond carbon dioxide removal. Here, we provide a multi-stage research framework for mCDR project developers to assess these interdisciplinary impacts, specifically in relation to marine ecosystems, fisheries, and aquaculture. This framework considers how projects can implement these recommendations across five research phases, using a stage-gated approach that focuses on: Stage 0, Planning; Stage 1, Baseline Assessment and Experiments; Stage 2, Pilot Field Trial; Stage 3, Scaled-up Field Trial; and Stage 4, Operational Deployment and Long-term Monitoring. As an interdisciplinary team of academic and government scientists, non-governmental organizations, and fisheries and Indigenous community members, we offer this framework as a high-level user guide for projects to consider impacts through a fisheries and aquaculture lens. We point to current frameworks when possible and outline additional considerations that can be addressed as research scales.
Citation
Kalina C Grabb, Gabriella D Kitch, Helen S Findlay, Helen J Gurney-Smith, Maria Myridinas, Paul McElhany, Fiona Hogan, Mattias Rolf Cape, Nicolás Sánchez, Martina H Stiasny, Elizabeth B Jewett, Elena Balestri, Fiona Culhane, Peter E T Edwards, Giulia Faucher, Raymond Hall, Peter Haugan, Jahnelle Howe, Elizabeth T Methratta, Ken Paul, Laura Sordo, A sequential gated research framework for addressing potential impacts of marine carbon dioxide removal on fisheries, aquaculture, and Indigenous communities, ICES Journal of Marine Science, Volume 83, Issue 6, June 2026, fsag076, https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsag076
TNC Authors
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Jahnelle Howe
SNAPP Quantitative Research Fellow. Global Science
The Nature Conservancy
Email: jahnelle.howe@tnc.org